This has bugged me for a while now so I thought I would share it for others opinions.

It seems the current property trend is for people to totally enclose their properties, and by totally enclose them I mean with large solid gates, large solid fencing to the maximum height, and basically follow the allegedly rich and famous, so why do they do it as in most cases they are not rich or famous, so what have they got to hide from their neighbours; it is mystique, vanity, or is it an incident waiting to happen.Maybe its simply ego or the fact they would like people to believe that they have something worthy of hiding.

There are further security and safety implications, these large wooden gates are solid for a reason and that is to hide whatever is behind them, and this included thieves and robbers, and unlike a set of steel or wrought iron gates, you cannot see through them and they are not noisy if someone climbs over them, put up a set of good wrought iron gates and everyone can see through them so thieves have nowhere to hide, and they are particularly noisy if you try to scale them which attracts your, and your neighbours attention. In many cases people use the slotted concrete fencing posts and slide their solid wooden panels into them, yet any thief of DCA simply realises that if the panels are slid in, they can also be slid out, and a great many of these people simply slide them up and crawl underneath them, so you ain't as secure as you portray yourself to be.

There have been some interesting occurences, someone I know did just this and found out he had wasted his money as thieves climbed his gate and broke into his house, he was hit with an insurance excess and larger premuims, so he got clever and put up a dummy alarm box which all the thieves know are fake, so they scaled his gate again and broke in for a second time, so he became more clever and put up a sensor light behind his gate and at the first power cut they broke in for a third time, by this time all the neighbours knew they had nothing as it had all been stolen.

In another case involving someone I don't like, they had a house fire and had to escape quickly, they got the door keys and opened the door and got out onto their driveway, in their panic to get out of the house they forgot the gate key and were trapped behind it until they smashed through a locked in fence panel, and no neighbour could see the fire, let alone raise the alarm, or get in to alert them the rear of their property was on fire, and both of them were badly burned, and even though I don't like them they didn't deserve that.